Girls soccer fights hard, earns ties against top contenders

Catherine Elkas keeps her eye on the ball.
Joyce Roberts photo After a series of five out of six road contests, it was more than time for the Wachusett girls’ varsity to taste some home cooking.

They did just that, hosting and forging a pair of hard-fought ties versus two of the region’s most formidable opponents at Hal Lane Field on Sept. 27 and 29.

Visiting Nashoba and Nipmuc Regional came to town facing a 3-4-1 Mountaineer squad that has seen improvement with each week. The tilt with Nashoba ended in a scoreless tie while Wachusett and the Indians battled to a 2-2 deadlock that witnessed some late-game heroics by the home team.

The Mountaineers fell behind early in the Nipmuc match-up, trailing by a goal before Casey Rotti scored her first varsity goal at the 12:33 mark of the first half. The speedy sophomore drilled one left side low, eluding the Indian keeper to even the score at one apiece.

Nipmuc took the lead once more with a goal at the 24:11 mark of the second half but the Mountaineers continued to hard press the opponent’s defense with scoring opportunities. With just 2:21 remaining, the officials called an infraction on Nashoba for taking down an opposing striker, which set up a penalty kick for Wachusett’s Gabby Peloquin. She fired point blank through traffic and hit for the tying goal.

“I just told myself to relax and make sure we got that tying point,” said Peloquin of her approach to the shot. “I’d been trained by coach to relax, calm myself down, and it worked.”

Both teams fought for the clincher but came up short, sending each team home with the 2-2 tie.

“I think that when we got down we needed to keep our composure and play our game because if we didn’t we’d have never tied it up,” said senior captain Kali DiPilla. “We just came off a really good tie and the energy was still there from that. Hopefully it carries through for the rest of the season.”

“The girls are fighting really hard to come together as a team and they’re getting better every day,” added head coach David Gentleman. “The kids need to just keep believing in each other and keep working as hard as possible.”

The Mountaineer girls next take on rival Shrewsbury at home on Oct. 4 with a 4 p.m. match-up.